Rupiah and stock prices gain ground

JAKARTA (JP): The rupiah and stock prices gained ground in thin trading yesterday, with most investors on the sidelines.

Currency dealers said the spot rupiah ended at 5,050/5,250 at the close yesterday against an opening of 5,150/5,250 in the morning session.

Dealers said most players shrugged off the news of Moody's downgrading of ratings on Indonesian foreign exchange ceilings and long-term deposits and debts of several Indonesian banks.

Dealers said rupiah trading was relatively thin as most operators feared that the central bank would carry out massive intervention to further shore up the rupiah.

"Dollar demand remains high, but the market has anticipated heavy intervention by the central bank to prevent the rupiah from falling further," one dealer with a local private bank said.

Stock prices at the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) also bore the fruit of the strengthening rupiah with the JSX composite index rising 7.05 points to close at 385.84 yesterday.

Over 379.94 million shares changed hands on the regular market valued at Rp 305.28 billion (US$61.05 million) yesterday.

Stock brokers said trading in the stock market was low with some local investors entering the market for already overvalued blue chip stocks like PT Telkom.

A broker from a local securities company said yesterday's trading activities were mostly dominated by local investors, because foreign ones had long left the market, except for blue chip stock PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom).

"I think there's practically no trading activity in the market," Surya Martara Tjahaja, head of sales at Usaha Bersama Sekuritas, said.

Karman Pamurahardjo, a securities analyst from Harita Securities, said that some listed companies entered the stock market to give their stocks a boost.

"I think some companies are trying to make the price of their stocks look good before the end of the year," he said. (aly)